“Thank you for telling me about it so clearly,” replied Macdonald. “Now I’m afraid there will be a lot of other questions I want to ask you, but if I’m going to look round inside the house, I think I’d better take advantage of what daylight is left. There isn’t any electric light, is there?”
“Gracious no! The only modern thing in this house is the telephone, and Marion had an awful tussle to get that. It was such a nuisance not being able to get at the vet, and the cattle-van people, and the corn millers. You’ll find most of the farmers round here are on the phone.”
“I wonder if you’d show me my way about inside a little? This house looks a formidable proposition.”
“Oh, no—you see we only use a small part of it. Hardly anybody except old Mr. Garth used the big staircase. We all use the kitchen one. Of course I’ll show you the house. Shall we go in by the parlour—it’s the usual way—when we don’t use the kitchen door.”
She led Macdonald through the parlour and as she opened the farther door she said:
“This passage leads to the kitchen—through that baize door; if you turn the other way you get to the office—where Mr. Garth and Marion kept their bills and forms and accounts—and to the big dining-room which is never used and then the main staircase.”
“And the gun-room?”
“That’s just here—it’s really under the kitchen stairs.”
She opened another door and Macdonald switched on his torch. The small room was used as a cloak room; there were Wellington boots and mackintoshes and ancient tweed coats and cloaks hanging on the walls. The guns—six of them—hung on racks, and Elizabeth explained:
“The two top ones are—were—old Mr. Garth’s, and the rifle is his, too. The double-barrelled shotgun below that is Marion’s, and the lowest two belonged to Charles and Richard. I believe they’re very old. Charles has tried both of them, but he says they’re hopelessly antiquated. Marion says he only complains because he’s a rotten shot.”
“Is he?”
“Oh, yes, hopeless. He tried potting rabbits at harvest until I told him I wouldn’t go on driving the tractor unless he put his gun down. He’s a menace with a gun.”
“Do you shoot?”
Macdonald was looking round as he spoke, observing the boxes of ammunition on the shelves above the gun racks.
“Well—I can, but I’m a pretty poor shot, and it doesn’t give me any pleasure. Mr. Garth was a wonderful shot once, and Marion’s very good. She gets wild duck sometimes—and that’s not easy.”
As he listened to the girl’s quiet, unembarrassed voice, Macdonald thought what a queer place the world was now. Elizabeth Meldon could have taken her place anywhere, in university or drawing-room—and she worked as a farm labourer worked, at any job on the farm. While she talked, Macdonald lifted down the guns, broke and examined them: each one was unloaded, cleaned, and in good condition. Anybody, on that afternoon when old Garth was shot, could have come into the empty house, borrowed gun and ammunition, used it, cleaned and returned it to its rack.
He switched off his torch and turned to Elizabeth. “Shall we go on exploring? I only want to see the kitchen, and any other entrances on the ground floor which are generally used.”
“There’s a side door which leads to the kitchen stairs—close beside the kitchen itself, then there’s the kitchen door, the scullery door, and the dairy door. Most people come to the kitchen door. It saves time.”
Macdonald paused just before passing through the baize door.
“If anybody had wanted to enter the house without going through the kitchen on the afternoon of Mr. Garth’s death, how many entrances were there for them to choose from?”
“At least three: the parlour window, the side door by the back stairs, and the office window. It’s nearly always left unlatched, and it’s a long window so it’s easy to get in by. Then there’s the dairy: you can go through the dairy and come out into this passage—look, through there and down the stone steps.”
She led the way down the steps into the stone-flagged dairy, which had another door leading out into the fold yard as well as the door into the kitchen. A flickering light was showing in the kitchen, and Macdonald went in there to find Marion lighting a lamp and Charles sitting on the kitchen table.
Marion looked up from her task. “Malcolm’s gone upstairs, Elizabeth. I think he’s all right now. Do you mind going and blacking out for him and seeing his lamp is all right? Don’t let him talk too much.”
“All right. I’ll go up.”
Elizabeth went quickly out of the room and Marion began to close the heavy shutters.
“Can I help you with that?” inquired Macdonald, and she replied:
“No, I’m used to it. These shutters are devils to move.”
Charles heaved a ponderous sigh. “Where are we now, Chief Inspector? It all looks pretty grim to me.”
“So far as the evidence goes, you know as much as I do,” replied Macdonald. “It seems perfectly plain that it would have been quite easy for anybody to have come into this house on Thursday afternoon and borrowed a gun—and returned it later.”
“I told you you oughtn’t to have touched those guns,” growled Charles. He turned to Macdonald. “When Marion came back in here, after she’d phoned to the police, she went and checked up on each of the guns in the gun-room,” he explained.
Marion cut in in her usual decisive way: “I wanted to know if any of the guns were missing—or if they’d been used or left loaded. I’d been worried about leaving my own gun about… It went off in the office one day.”
“Yes. I heard about that,” said Macdonald. “When you examined the guns after your father was shot, what did you find?”
“Nothing. They were all in order—unloaded and cleaned.”
“Perfectly correct,” said Charles. “I looked at them, too. I suppose we ought not to have touched them—but there it is.”
“But I still don’t see how anybody could have known Father would go to the hull,” protested Marion. “It’s all so stupid and inconclusive… Richard might have done this, might have done that…”
“Your brother knew this place well,” said Macdonald. “He would have known that it was possible to see as far as Lawson’s Wood from at least one point easily accessible here—that is, from a ladder on the loft of the barn. You can see right out over the fields from the gap up in the gable.”
Marion sat very still, staring at Macdonald. “Even so, even if he’d seen Father coming over the fields towards the hull, he wouldn’t have known he was going in there.”
“No—but if your father had seen the door of the hull was open, isn’t it almost certain he would have gone to shut it—as John Staple did?”
“Oh Lord, yes, I suppose so.” It was Charles who answered, his voice depressed and irritated, as though he found it an effort to control himself. He drummed with his fingers on the table and went on: “Admittedly you’ve made out a case, and a damned clever case, but you haven’t any proof at all. It might have happened as you say—or it might not. Personally, I don’t believe it.”
“What are you going to do?… Or is that an idiotic thing to ask?” Marion spoke wearily, and Macdonald replied:
“The obvious thing to do is to find your brother, Richard. That may take time—but it’s got to be done. Meanwhile I’ll be getting on my way. I hope that lad won’t be any the worse. Good-night.”
Macdonald walked to the kitchen door and Charles followed him. “Good-night. I can only say again—I don’t believe you’re right.”
It was dusk as Macdonald made his way outside to his car, and just as he was getting in a voice called to him softly, “Mr. Macdonald, just a minute.”
It was Elizabeth Meldon, and he stood up and waited for her.
“I’ve been talking to Malcolm,” she said. “He didn’t tell any one else except me that he
’d seen Richard. I’m quite sure he’s telling the truth about that. He’s been worrying about it all—that’s what made him so queer.” Her voice was hurried and a little breathless, and she went on: “I expect you think I’m silly, trying to explain things, but I’m so sorry for Malcolm. I know he didn’t do it, but it’s so hopeless to try to prove it.”
“There’s one thing you could do, if you would, Miss Meldon,” replied Macdonald. “It’s this. Will you try to write down a description of everything that was said and what happened at tea time on Monday afternoon, from the time Malcolm came in until you went into the oatfield—where you all sat and what every one did so far as you can remember?”
“Yes. I’ll try—but nothing much was said or done… However, I’ll do my best, though I’m not much good at writing things down. Wouldn’t it be easier if I tried to tell you?”
“If you’d rather. Will you come with me in the car a little way and we can talk?”
“Of course.” Elizabeth got in the car and Macdonald drove on for a few hundred yards in silence. As he pulled up Elizabeth spoke again.
“I’ve been thinking: perhaps I’m all wrong and just being horribly suspicious, but I have remembered something a bit queer about Monday evening…”
And Macdonald listened to the girl’s low, breathless voice talking in the gloom.
Chapter Fourteen
Macdonald stayed and talked to Elizabeth Meldon for well over half an hour, and it was almost dark before he drove on. About a mile from Garthmere he made out a man’s figure walking ahead of him in the gloom and he slowed up as he overtook and called, “Would you like a lift?”
“Thanks! Would I not! Footslogging isn’t my idea of bliss.”
Charles Garth scrambled into the car beside Macdonald saying, “I’ve come out for a drink. The fact that I’m willing to walk two and a half miles to a pub and then two and a half miles back may give you an idea of how much I want a drink.”
“You don’t care for your village local?”
“My God!” groaned Charles. “Think it out—and have a heart. If I go into the bar there’s a sudden deathly hush—and then they start talking about the weather in hearty tones. I know what they’ve been talking about—and I don’t blame them, but I’d rather not butt into an argument concerning the probability of my sister having shot my father, and variations on that theme.”
“But surely the farmers round here wouldn’t discuss your sister in such a way?”
“Oh, wouldn’t they! You don’t know them; they’d be careful enough over what they said in front of you, or any other stranger, but amongst themselves I’d lay a bet they’ve hanged one and all of us. Human nature’s the same the world over. The devil of it is they all know everything that’s gone on at Garthmere.”
“Such as…?” inquired Macdonald.
“Oh, use your wits. You’re not lacking in that respect,” said Charles. “They all know that Marion is a first-class farmer who wants to put modern ideas into practice, and they all know that the old man thwarted her in every scheme she thought out. I’ve no doubt they all know that he wouldn’t pay her a decent wage. If it hadn’t been for those damned hens and ducks and geese Marion wouldn’t have had a penny to call her own. It’s the same with Malcolm: he can’t do a full day’s work, poor devil, he hasn’t the physique for it, but the old man drove the boy till he nearly dropped at hay time—and then jeered at him in front of everybody because he writes poetry. My God! Do I want a drink? I ask you!”
“Yes. It must be pretty wearing,” said Macdonald. “By the way, what pub do you want? Will the Green Dragon do? I’m staying there, by the way, but I don’t think they’ve guessed who I am.”
“Oh, haven’t they! I bet every one knows who you are from Lancaster to Kirby. Yes, the Green Dragon’s where I was making for.”
He was silent for a moment and then broke out: “I’m in the deuce of a quandary, you know. You’ve been very decent to us—not rubbing things in. It’d be a relief to get a few things off my chest—knowing you’re not likely to jump to wild conclusions.”
“I take a conservative view of what I’m told,” said Macdonald. “If a statement is relevant, I follow it up; if not, it’s as though it hadn’t been made.”
“Good—then I can go ahead. I told you just now that some folk hereabouts are suggesting that Marion shot the old man. It’s damned rot and it makes me livid, but I know the real trouble is that there’s no proof. See here: you’ve got four of us, Richard and Marion and Malcolm and self. None of us has an alibi, I know that. You seem to have been putting your money on Richard. I can see your reasoning, but I don’t believe it. Neither do I believe Marion did it, though I was bothered about that business of her gun going off in the office that day.”
He broke off, and Macdonald, who had been driving slowly, pulled the car up, saying, “Sorry to delay your drink—but would you like to enlarge on that topic?”
“Well, it’s like this,” said Charles slowly. “Marion’s a sensible, methodical creature. She didn’t leave a loaded gun balanced against a table by mistake. Neither did she arrange a Heath Robinson pot-shot at the old man just when they were having a row the whole household could hear—cursing one another to high heaven. No. Whoever arranged that little incident, it was not Marion.”
“Then who was it?”
“My God! You may well ask. There’s one reason, and one only, why I’m telling you all this—because I won’t have it said that Marion’s the culprit. She’s quixotic, you know. Did you notice that she said ‘I was worried because I’d left my gun in the office’? She’s willing to shoulder that now… Yet when she came out of the office that day, after all the shindy, she was livid because she knew someone else had left that loaded gun there… However, I’d better get my bit said and done with it. It’s revolting enough in all conscience. You remember you asked if there was a vantage point whence one could see over the fields to Lawson’s Wood?”
“Yes—and there is.”
“You found a peep-hole in the hay loft. I thought of something else. There’s an old lumber room over the dairy. Malcolm uses it for his bee-hive junk. I reckoned the window in there would give a view up the river, so I went up and had a look. There was a lot of stuff piled up in a corner, and I knocked some of it over when I tried to get at the window… I picked an old crate up—as I did so I got hold of some filthy rag…which had been used for cleaning a gun barrel…” Charles Garth brought his fist down on his open palm. “Lord, I feel a skunk telling you this!” he groaned. “I went and told Marion… She just went up to the loft and took that rag away. I tell you she’d let herself be hanged rather than…see Malcolm suspected.”
“Steady on,” said Macdonald quietly. “Evidence can be interpreted in more ways than one. If one of the guns in your gun-room was used for this job, it had to be cleaned before it was put away. That lumber room isn’t locked, I take it?”
“No. Nothing’s locked in that house, barring the old man’s desk and chest. My God! This is a rotten business!”
“A rotten business it is,” agreed Macdonald. “The only way of clearing it up is to get at the truth. I’ll tell you one thing, though I’m chary of making such assertions as a rule—it’s too easy to make mistakes—but I don’t believe your sister had anything to do with the crime.”
“Thank God for that,” replied Charles, and then added: “By way of anti-climax, I said I wanted a drink. I want one more than ever now.”
“All right. I’ll drive you to it,” replied Macdonald, feeling for his gear handle. “There’s one thing I should like to ask—although you needn’t answer it if you don’t want to. You said to the Superintendent, ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ and you repeated it more than once. Do you mean to imply that there’s more than one unbalanced person in this case—Jock being the one?”
“The Lord knows. Can you wonder that I’ve asked myself the same quest
ion?” groaned Charles.
Macdonald drove Charles Garth up to the Green Dragon, but he did not then seek to garage his car in the stable used for that purpose. He drove on to Carnton to Layng’s headquarters, and found the Superintendent waiting for him.
“Well, I reckon it’s simply a matter of running the fellow to earth,” said Layng. “There’s a message for you from the Merseyside authorities. Richard Garth, seaman and ack-ack gunner, did not rejoin his ship before she put to sea this morning. Seems silly to me—but I suppose he knew we’d get on his tracks before he reached New York. A ship’s as good as a rat-trap to a criminal these days.”
Macdonald nodded. “A very fair analogy. Did you get on to the Ingleborough Ramblers, or whatever they call themselves?”
“Yes. They’re the Pot Hole enthusiasts. Ever heard of those pot-holes—Gaping Ghyll and the rest?”
“Yes. I’ve heard of them.”
Layng stared at Macdonald’s non-committal countenance.
“Well, these lads are game to do their stuff for you, to-morrow being Sunday. They’ll beat the whole hillside between them—and bring you anything they find, from a bus-ticket to a shotgun.”
“Very kind of them. I shall probably go over to have a look-see. How long does it take to walk to Panstone from Garthmere?”
“Walk? Rather you than me. A matter of three and a half to four hours.”
Fell Murder Page 18